Thursday, December 26, 2013

The Bubblizer is a game that can be seen as soccer or dodgeball, with a streak of kink, a lot of shine and a good dose of bondage.

It is a game for between 2 and 32 players, with between 1 and 40 balls, or bubbles, in an arena that spans from 8x8 m to 32x32 m wide. Whether the goals are rezzed or not, the game would be either a soccer game or a dodgeball game respectively.

In dodgeball mode, players aim at other players when kicking the bubbles, while in soccer mode they aim at their goals, that they are trying to defend.

Before we go further, take a look at a few pictures :

A field like no other

It is hard to play soccer when your opponents keep adding restraints on you !

Ok the blue team is clearly winning

The pink team is getting their revenge !

If you want real chaos, try a free-for-all !

As you can see, the players are wearing shiny catsuits and restraints. They are both provided for free by the game. The restraints are mesh and can be resized easily.

The rules of the game are simple :

- If you find a transparent bubble, bump into it to make it yours.

- If you see a player you can kick this bubble to, do it.

- If someone kicks an enemy bubble towards you, run !

- If you manage to hit a player (or their goal) with your bubble, you score and you can choose to restrain them or to remove a restraint from yourself.

- Choose the restraints wisely, for each restraint has its own effect. Putting the right restraint at the right time may turn the tables in your favor !

- After the end of the game, the player who scored the most wins and gets unbound. The rest of the players stay in bondage, and their restraints are available to all (except themselves and the other losers, of course).

This is simple, but there are many things the players can do to achieve a leading position. They can grab and toss the bubbles, they can make a bubble of theirs "contaminate" or absorb another one by making it bump into it, they can pop enemy bubbles... a lot of tactics and strategies are available in order to prevail on the field.

Attention : The game can take up to 100 prims in Land Impact when you choose to rez the bumps, the columns, the goals, the biggest arena with the highest number of bubbles. A standard game, let's say a 10x10 field with 20 bubbles, will take 50 prims in Land Impact. When idle (everything derezzed), the Bubblizer takes only 1 prim in Land Impact and has a script time usage of 0.002 ms (the lowest a script can do).

You can find the Bubblizer in any of the Marine's Goodies vendors. There are not many among the grid so here are the known locations :

PS : If you want to give the Bubblizer a try before buying, you can find one in Bondage City : click on the teleporter near you when you arrive, and choose "Bubblizer Field" on the menu, then sit on the ball that appears to TP there.

Update to v1014 :* Added : The field derezzes after an hour of inactivity, to return to its idle state with only the platform.* Changed : The column obstacle is entirely redone in mesh with a simpler
physical shape that feels closer to its visual shape. The old one was a
torus with a convex hull (hence a cylinder). As a result, the prim
count is a higher than before, the set of columns for the 16x16 field
takes 15 prims instead of 7. I couldn't go lower than that without
simplifying the visual shape too much.* Changed : The
lights, which are part of the field, are physical and in consequence may
disturb the trajectory of a bubble. I have moved them outside the
field, one meter back exactly.* Added : I included the French translation (courtesy of Florensse Resident) in the box.

Update to v1014 : This update contains mostly bug fixes, no new stuff.* Changed : Increased the range of tossing a bubble from 2 m to 4 m around the player.* Changed : Make it so the lifespan of a bubble is calculated from its latest collision or touch.* Fixed : Don't let a restraint go over level 3 (it could happen when two players restrained a third one at the same time).*
Fixed : Don't let an opponent grab and stop your bubbles. This implied
reviewing the whole logic of grabbing and tossing a bubble.*
Fixed : Make it so only immobile or very slow bubbles can be grabbed.
You can still stop your own bubbles in mid flight by clicking on them.

Update to v1013 :* Added a "Join/leave" button to the menu of the attachment, to join or leave the nearest server. This is useful if the player is bound too tightly to be able to touch the scoreboard to join or leave the next game. * Added a male version of the catsuit. Don't wear both catsuits at the same time, it would look strange !* Made the wrinkles on the elbows of the catsuits look better.* Added a pattern to the catsuits. This pattern is black but turns white if the catsuit is too dark (i.e. when it is green, red, black or purple).* Made the green team darker.* Sharpened the skin texture of the catsuits.* Made sure the resizing mode is turned off when the game starts.* Prevent the restraints from working if RLV is deactivated.

Update to v1012 : This update is merely about making the
Bubblizer rez its objects correctly independently of its rotation around
the Z axis. Normally the scoreboard should face an avatar who is
standing on the "BUBBLIZER" logo on the platform.

Update to v1011 : There is another update available as of today, December the 31st, 2013, with the following changes :

*
Fixed the rezzing bug, which would prevent some objects from derezzing
when someone TPs in or out of the sim (due to a strange race condition
that does not occur under normal circumstances).* Switch
the bubble's physics envelope to "convex hull" so that it does really
take only 1 prim per bubble and not 23. I'm sorry, I should have seen
that sooner. And now the bubble/bubble collision box is even better than
before, I think.* Prevent from grabbing enemy bubbles (I really thought that was the case before, but no).*
Keep a bubble harmless while it is grabbed, even if it is owned. That
way you can't grab and drag a bubble into a player or a goal, that would
be too easy.* Don't allowtossing a bubble if it
is further than 1 m away from the player when releasing the mouse
button. That way you can't toss just any bubble on the field in any
direction, and you can't toss bubbles at very high speeds either.* Reinitialize the game immediately after the end, but keep the score showing on the scoreboard (the teams are emptied, though).* Move the scoreboard a tad bit further inside the arena so it doesn't flicker when seen from afar at shallow angles.* Hide the teams that do not have any players on the scoreboard for better readability.* Don't say the scores on the chat when simply shutting the Bubblizer down while no game is playing.* When shutting the Bubblizer down, release everybody except those who have already lost.* Reduce the darkness of the nipples on the catsuit.*
Add very short rules in the "Bubble restraint" notecard, before the
pictures, so that new players will know what to do even without reading
further.

Update to v1002 : There is an update available as of today, December the 29th, 2013, with the following changes :

* Added complete rules in the restraints folder, grouped in several pictures for a better readability.* Added a short text on the platform itself, to explain what to do to get the menu.* Added a short text on the scoreboard when rezzed, to explain where to click to get the gear.* When the game ends, the scores are shown on the chat as well, both per team and per individual player.* The game keeps the players registered for 3 minutes after the end instead of 1 minute. * When nobody wins, everybody is released instead of just the pink team.*
Added an option to ignore restraints during the game (but the losers do
get restrained after the end). When hitting a player or a goal, the
player doesn't get a menu and scores immediately instead.* Changed the visibility of the cuffs, they should not appear when the arms are bound tightly anymore.* Improved the menu on the game, duplicated the "Dodgeball/Soccer" switch to two of the pages for better usability and logic.* Improved the menu on the restraints by adding the current status of the target.

Click on the small arrow on the scoreboard to request an update (owner only).

Monday, October 21, 2013

Here is a new product in the Marine's Goodies brand (i.e. not quite kinky but not quite vanilla either, and always useful) : a battery.

It was meant to be released months ago, along with the Mousewheel, but for some reason I dragged and dragged, RL got in the way, I wanted to improve the battery from what it was capable of at the time, well you know the feeling. I'm sorry for letting you wait.

Its purpose is to act as a "buffer" for the energy output of the Mousewheel, Treadmill or whatever other power source you can come up with. Without the battery, lights receiving power from such power sources needed said power sources to actually deliver power. In practice, that would mean a sub was needed to run on a Mousewheel or a Treadmill in order to use your lights.

But with this battery, no need for a sub to run at all times ! Make her fill the battery with her efforts then send her to rest or frolic or whatever it is your sub does when she's not working, and you can use the accumulated energy until it depletes.

In the box you will find not only the battery itself, but also three full-perms lights, the same as the ones you get with the Mousewheel and Treadmill, and a copy of the script they use, should you want to make your own devices.

Speaking of which, the manual contains all the info you need in order to build your own devices to suck power out of the battery. The protocol is simple and fully documented. You will even be able to sell your own devices if you like, why not ?

The price of the product is L$200, for one battery (copy/mod/no-transfer), three lights (full-perms, only their script is copy/no-mod/trans) and a copy/trans "Light" script to make your own devices.

You can find it in any of my Marine's Goodies vendors. There are not many in-world, but here are a few destinations :

Thursday, September 19, 2013

I just heard about a very sad news : Jeff Gord passed away in the beginning of this month. On September the 3rd, 2013. If you don't know who Jeff Gord is, or if the name only rings a bell, he was the owner of www.HouseOfGord.com

I'm not a member, I don't go there often (or else I would have known sooner), but I've known about them for years now. They have always been an inspiration to me, as you probably noticed from some of the products I sell. One of my friends talked to him about 2 months ago, and said he was very friendly. I'm not surprised. He and his team certainly brought a lot of people a lot of fun. They can bring you the most serious of bondage and be silly and playful at the same time.

Godspeed, Gord, may you have as much fun in your next life as you had in the last one. And my heart and blessings go to his family, friends and team members. I know it must be hard for them these days.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Yesterday morning, I got an IM from Gibson Firehawk telling me that, well, the Z offset fix is well and all, but was only working locally...

*facepalm*

So, one sacrificed Sunday later, here is a new version of the RLV that, this time, does propagate the Z offset to other users around you. A little explanation is in order, though, because it now shows that it will certainly not work exactly the way it used to before SSA was rolled out across the grid. As close as possible, but not exactly the same.

Before the SSA rollout, you would just use your Z offset slider to decide how much higher or how much lower your avatar would appear to be (I say "appear" for a reason : in fact your avatar bounding box was taller or smaller, the change of altitude was only visual and only a side effect of it).

Now, the Z offset directly tweaks the Hover value of your shape. Which means your shape must be modifiable in the first place, and also that its new Hover value needs to be validated by the sim, and that takes some time.

So here is how I did this :

1. You use your Z offset slider like before, and it will in fact feel faster and smoother than before, simply because the change will be only local at first.

2. You leave your Z offset slider alone and one second later, things start getting interesting : your RLV will move your avatar a little lower or a little higher than what you wanted, don't fret, this is normal. It will stay there until the sim responds with a confirmation, updating your shape and putting you at the exact altitude you had requested. It's slow, it takes a few seconds, sometimes the sim will even refuse to update your shape with some excuses like "not found" or "service unavailable" but your viewer will keep insisting until the sim gives up and finally updates your shape. If it really doesn't want to update, you can move your Z slider again to retry, but that shouldn't be necessary too often.

3. You play with your Z offset slider again, say to go back to zero. Once again your altitude will change the way you want, then a second later will be off for a little while. I know this is annoying but this is the only way I found to overcome a nasty bug in the update : the altitude that is acknowledged by the sim is never the one you requested. It is the one you wanted, multiplied by 1.25. Don't ask me why, I have no clue, and it has wasted a lot of my time trying to figure that out. Note to Henri : I don't do things the same way you do in your viewer so I had to use a factor to correct that behavior. Please don't kill me. Hehe.

One thing you need to know : it also works when sitting (the former version didn't), but it just won't show in local, you have to wait until the sim updates your shape. This is annoying because it does not let you tweak your position as precisely as when you are standing, and I don't know how to make it work in local when sitting. Maybe I'll find a solution in the future, if any.

So there you have it. It works, but I must say I am not proud of the code I had to write to overcome this at all. It's dirty, it's hacky, it's messy and this factor thing just doesn't make sense. But it's there and it had to be fixed.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

So I was hoping Linden Lab would do something about our Z offset feature... you know, the slider on the top menu bar that lets you make your avatar hover above the ground or sink. It was handy for adjusting your position when sitting on a furniture, or when your avatar is simply not standing on its feet (sitting, kneeling, laying...). There is even an RLV command that uses this feature, to adjust your height automatically with a script.

This was very useful feature and the recent Server Side Appearance rollout across the grid broke it. Linden Lab were called out on this, and Nyx Linden took it on his personal time to provide us a replacement, by adding a "Hover" value in the avatar's shape, that does more or less what the old Z offset did. Problem is, while doing its job, this replacement was barely acceptable in our case because not as precise, cumbersome and needing your shape to be modifiable. So I was hoping LL would do something about it because, I don't know, it is a bad idea to break features the users are accustomed to.

But no.

Instead of that, the whole grid was rolled out this week and sure enough, the Z offset was broken and inoperable. You could play with the slider all day, nothing would happen. I didn't have time to look into this breakage before yesterday, but thanks to Henri Beauchamp's work in his Cool Viewer, it is now working again, as well as before, and the RLV command @adjustheight (which relies on it) still works like before. The only problem is that your shape must be modifiable now. No modifiable shape, no Z offset (we can call it an offset now, can't we Henri ? *wink*). This is going to be a problem for people who sell and for those who buy no-mod shapes, but it is that or nothing.

Another thing : the SSA rollout also broke the temporary upload feature, so I removed the checkboxes from the Upload and the Snapshot windows. But fret not, you can use the standard "Local" feature instead, which is faster and cleaner :

When you want to apply a texture on a face or prim, notice the "Local" radio button on the texture chooser. Click on it, then click on "Add", select one or more textures to add to the local cache in the explorer, then click on one of the textures that appear in the list to apply it to your face. The neat trick is that this texture will update itself automatically as soon as it is modified on your hard drive. For example, when you work on it in Gimp or Photoshop and save it, switch back to your viewer and you will see the result right away. No additional action is required. It's neat and is a time saver over the old "temporary upload" which was taking a lot of time for each upload.

I would like to thank warmly Nyx Linden and Henri Beauchamp for both taking on their personal time to fix that breakage. Thanks guys !

So here it is, a new version of the RLV with the fix and you can adjust your Z offset again. Sorry for the wait !

Friday, August 16, 2013

But this release fixes invisiprims ! Thanks to Henri Beauchamp's help, a little bit of code that was getting in the way of having invisiprims work was removed, the result was tested, and here you go ! New version of the RLV.

Now, I was wrong on some account : I thought nobody cared about invisiprims but me, because two products of mine needed them to work. That was incorrect, I'm far from being the only person worrying about the loss of support for invisiprims (LL officially dropped supporting them long ago). A lot of people still need them.

It's true, invisiprims are a hack in the first place. They were never supposed to be kept working for long, but for years we had no way to hide parts of the avatar mesh until alpha layers were introduced. Then most people were like "Ok can we stop with invisiprims now ? We can hide parts of the avatar mesh in a more elegant way now, let invisiprims die already ! They're ugly !"

Sure they are ugly, they're a hack. Invisiprims hide not only the avatar mesh behind them but also alpha textures, shininess and shadows. Plus, they render differently in the deferred renderer ("Lighting & Shadows", aka "Advanced Model") and in the forward renderer (the one without shadows). Ugly ! Hacky !

But there are two things invisiprims can do that alpha layers can't (or any other technique for that matter) :

- Hide a part of the avatar mesh by script : When you turn an invisiprim even semi-transparent, it stops hiding the avatar behind it. When you turn it fully opaque again (ok it's invisible, but opaque, follow a little, will ya ?), it hides the avatar behind it again. That's the feature two of my products rely on : the RR Armbinder and the RR Tape gag (plus blindfold). The RR Isolation Hood uses invisiprims too, but they can be replaced by alpha layers, and will. But for the former two, they are invisible while unlocked (and shouldn't hide the avatar's shoulders and lips respectively), and visible while locked (and expected to hide the shoulders and forearms for the armbinder, and lips for the gag).

- Hide only one arm : It's silly, but there is only one texture you can apply on the arms, and this texture will be mirrored on the other arm. This is how the SL avatar is UV-mapped, and this is not going to change any time soon I don't think. This means that an alpha layer (which follows the SL avatar UV map) is stuck with this restriction too. You cannot hide the left arm and not the right arm, for example. Invisiprims, on the other hand (no pun intended) are attachments, you can hide whatever you want without bothering with UV mapping.

Now, I know this post is supposed to be about RLV, but let me digress for a minute. I have made a script that gives the user of a RR armbinder or a RR tape gag a folder when locked. It's not released yet, maybe I will included it in an update, maybe not, and you'll see why I'm undecided if you read on.

The folder can contain anything you can think of and its name begins with a tilde ("~") so it is placed directly in your #RLV folder, and in the case of those two products, it just contains an alpha layer. The folder is different for some locks, for example the armbinder needs to hide only your forearms on locks 2 and 3, and needs to hide the whole arms on locks 4, 5 and 6. It works exactly like the Mousewheel and the Treadmill, which give you a folder containing clamps and/or a harness, depending on the configuration. It won't give you the folder if you already have it, to avoid clogging your inventory with useless stuff. And unlike the Mousewheel and the Treadmill, it doesn't need a RLV relay since you own the product, the commands are direct.

All this is good and well, but there are a few problems with this technique :

- The user needs to be on a RLV. If they aren't, they need to wear the alpha layers manually. It's clumsy.

- The #RLV folder receives sub-folders directly at the root. While this is acceptable and used by many other products in SL, this means this folder needs to be cleaned from time to time.

- The alpha layers take some time to bake. This means you won't see your avatar correctly (lips or shoulders will keep poking through the restraints) until the baking is done, which can take between 10 seconds and... the whole session. Depends.

- It won't work if you are already wearing 5 alpha layers. The limit of how many pieces of clothing of each type you can wear at any time is 5.

- Sometimes SL will just refuse to acknowledge that there is something in the folder you've been given. Sure you'll see the folder under #RLV, but your viewer will believe the folder is empty (or still "Loading...") and the "force wear" command issued by the restraint will fall short. Meaning you will think there is a bug : you've received the folder, the alpha layer is in there, but you're not wearing it. Mariiiiine ! There's a bug !

- Finally, you could be restricted from wearing stuff outside certain folders under your #RLV, and the "~" folders such as the one you've just received are not part of them. This means you receive the folder, the alpha layer is in there, the "force wear" command works... but nothing happens, and you think there is a bug, while everything is working as designed.

So... You can see why I'm currently happy with invisiprims, even though they are hacky and ugly and not supported. But until there is a better option to hide parts of the avatar mesh by script, I'd rather stick with them than relying on the more static option of alpha layers.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

It has been brought to my attention that the latest RLV wasn't working for those who use SL Voice, simply because one of its libraries was not compatible with the ones contained in the official SL viewer anymore. I don't know why, nor what I did wrong, but the issue was so bad that you couldn't even use the RLV properly without a fix. The viewer would complain about something missing in ortp.dll, then it would slow down so much that it would be unusable (about 1 frame per second or even less). You wouldn't get this issue unless you used Voice and were in a voice-enabled region.

So here is the fix :

Until now you would copy SLVoice.exe and the three vivox libraries from the SL viewer to your RLV in order to use Voice. It just so happens that a fifth file needs to be copied : ortp.dll.

You can get this file from your official SL viewer installation, overwriting the one in the RLV folder (since that one is not compatible), and it should work.

I'm uploading a new RLV without this ortp.dll file, and with an updated readme, just to avoid confusing the users. You don't really need to download it again if you have downloaded RLV 2.8.5, simply follow the instructions above to fix this problem yourself.

The MD5 hash for the Windows package is
3dd6f917a7a2374dd133dc3044e4dfe7

Now, another issue I've stumbled upon yesterday : the materials feature completely breaks invisiprims when using the deferred renderer (aka "lighting & shadows", aka "advanced lighting model"). You may have noticed that I have struggled over the last year to keep providing support for them, even knowing it is a hack and is meant to be forgotten after a while.

Problem is, some of my products (and I'm not the only one in this case) rely on a feature that only invisiprims could provide : the ability to hide and show some parts of the avatar mesh by script. When you wear an invisiprim and turn it even partially transparent, it stops hiding the avatar mesh underneath. This is neat when you want to make an attachment appear on you while hiding some parts of your body, just by clicking, and it would not even require an RLV.

Now this is not working anymore, and I don't see what I can do to make it work again. Even the hack is broken. So what I am going to do (and should have done long ago) is create alpha layers for some of my products (namely the Isolation Hood, the Armbinder and the Tape Gag) and make the avatar wear them forcibly when locked, a bit like the Mousewheel and Treadmill do when the sub is hitched. I wish I didn't need to do that, but LL leaves me no choice.

Monday, July 22, 2013

So, once again I have been working on non-kinky stuff : a camera network system.

I wanted one that was enjoyable to use in a roleplay environment, rather than simply a sim security system, even though you can use it for that purpose too. One that would be perfect for SL prisons for example, but also for webcams, conferences...

As a user, you just wear a special HUD that allows you to see through the camera of your choice (provided you have access to it), among the cameras belonging to the network you have selected. You can rotate the camera, make it scan around, track an avatar, change the brightness etc. You can speak through it, hear what it is said around it, and even have several users connected to the same camera.

As the owner of the camera networks, you can secure it with one or more passwords, separate your many cameras into several networks, and either give out the passwords to the users or use a "keymaster" (a broker of credentials) to grant access to the users without revealing any secret information. You can even restrict the access to a network to one particular location in the sim, for example 3 m around the keymaster. This works great to simulate surveillance rooms in prisons.

All this to say, this system is easy to use, powerful, versatile and easy on the sim resources.

Take a look at the following pictures to get an idea of what the contents of the box look like :

The Webcam

The Security Cam

The Dome Cam

The Keymaster

The HUD

The price of this product is L$600, and is found into any of my Marine's Goodies vendors. You can find one at these places :

Please note : this is not a spy device, it does not record video and chat nor does it use sensor or track visitors. It does not send any video feedback to anybody except the connected users, who have to be in the same sim.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Even before the Mousewheel, there was another piece of equipment I wanted in my workout place... a Treadmill ! You know, the kind of thing that lets you train in running, without all the advantages such as sun, fresh air and nice parks :p

But I digress. This treadmill functions very much like the Mousewheel, but has a couple additional features. It can be used vanilla-style, or be very naughty like the Treadmill they use in House Of Gord. Have you noticed ? House Of Gord. I often mention that website because, well, they have great ideas when it comes to having fun in bondage. And that's where some of my inspiration comes from !

I don't want to bore you with details and descriptions, plus you probably already know how the Mousewheel works, so you will notice the Treadmill works exactly the same way. Instead, I'll show you pics and videos !

First of all, a Treadmill is meant for workout.

However, and that's where the Treadmill is different from the Mousewheel, walking is not the only way a slave may move... Check this out :

And of course, since I mentioned you-know-who, let's do it Gord-style. You use your favorite restraints (not necessarily RealRestraint, although it works best with them) to make the sub looks like her legs are tied up, and you select one of the appropriate configurations. There is "Chained", "Hobble" and "Tight". Naturally, since the sub is in bondage, to stay safe the Treadmill provides a frame to harness her shoulders to and keep her up.

Here is "Chained" :

The legs may be hobbled for an even more restrictive exercise :

And when the time comes, training may become really tight :

Did you say "ponygirl" ?

This Treadmill, like any treadmill in RL, is able to display your time, speed and other values while you're running, all on its embedded screen. It helps keeping the body... disciplined.

This screen repeats most of the information you find in the distance counter (also included in the box, and identical to the one coming with the Mousewheel, and both counters are compatible with both devices).

Like the Mousewheel, this piece of equipment is able to power the lights around. Such lights are provided in the box and are full perms (except the script which is no-mod) :

Last but not least, the Treadmill has its own integrated Tens unit ! You know, for unruly slaves... or for slaves who think of being unruly... or for those who think of thinking of being unruly... or just when you want to make sure that they work at all.

Simply activate the zapper, select a minimum speed and off she goes !

I'm sorry, I had to remove the zapper videos from this page as YouTube flagged one of them as "inappropriate content" (although there's no nudity and no pornographic pictures there, but they do what they want with their website).

Whew ! All this exercise in tight latex was exhausting. I need a res--

Angry voice from the living room : "Argh ! Filthy hooves on the couch again ! #@$%&* !!"

But Mistress--

Angry voice threatens, curses over seven generations, and then threatens some more.

Yes Mistress.

This treadmill is sold in my "Marine's Goodies" line for L$500, it is copy, mod and no-trans, the lights are full-perms and the distance counter is copy and mod. The zapper and the harness are given to the sub when she climbs on, they are all copy and mod. The Land Impact is 18 prims equivalent.

Have fun !

Marine

PS : Sorry, the outfits used in this photoshoot are so complex, mixed, varied and customized that I can't make a list. Please don't ask me about them, thank you.

Friday, May 10, 2013

After months of work in integrating Linden Lab's last feature called "CHUI" ("Communication Hub User Interface", nothing to do with Feng Shui unfortunately), here is the latest version of the RLV. If you wonder about 2.8.4, there is none. I planned to release it last month but it was simply crashing too much so it was a no-go.

So yes, it took more than two months to integrate CHUI and to debug it. That feature broke several features in my code and the mitigation took time. Sorry about that.

I also wanted to add a few improvements that have been nagging at me for some time, so here it is. The full list of changes follows :

- changed : Do not lose the camera focus when clicking on something. If you really want to lose focus, simply right click on your avatar, or press Escape. Or focus on something else.

- changed : Allow moving an item or a folder from a locked folder to another locked folder (prevent only from locked to unlocked and from unlocked to locked).

- changed : Do not expect the user to press Enter before chatting while in Mouselook, since they don't have to when in 3rd view.

- changed : Do not automatically rename folders or items in the inventory anymore, unless "RestrainedLoveAutomaticRenameItems" is set to TRUE (it is FALSE by default). This is no longer necessary since the viewer does not have to figure out whether it will kick a locked object or not anymore (since it Adds by default now).

- fixed : We could drag and drop an item from an object in-world directly into the inventory, regardless of attach restrictions.

- fixed : We could wear things that were rezzed by right-clicking on them in-world and selecting "attach to", even when @unsharedwear was active.

- fixed : We couldn't hide the UI when unable to rez.

- fixed : We could create new pieces of clothing regardless of outfit restrictions.

- fixed : The Control key wouldn't work in Mouselook. Fixing this removes the ability to control the speed of the mouse view while holding Control, I'm afraid, but Shift already does something similar.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

After a week of use, I have spotted a few bugs and a few things that could be enhanced on the Mousewheel.

So if you are interested, simply click on your Mousewheel, go to "Maintenance..." then click on "New version ?" and you will receive a new box. Sorry this version involves changes into scripts that are not in the root prim, and items like the Display, so a conventional update is not possible on this one.

Take a look at the list of improvements :

* Access level is now in two parts, sitting access and menu access. The sitting access is the same as before (All, Group captives, Owner), while the menu access allows the owner to select whether everyone can click, or only group members, or only yourself. As a bonus, the Zapper is now linked to that menu access as well but only "owner of the wheel" or "all", no "group" access for it (since it means restricting to only members of the group of the wheel, not of the Zapper, and SL does not allow this). Please note, that the access level of the Display is still independent from that of the wheel.

* The Zapper does not turn itself off when attached anymore, that was annoying when relogging on the wheel since it would lose its settings.

* The particles do not get a weird angle anymore (they would sometimes spawn too early when the avatar was still not sitting tight yet and still had an odd orientation, confusing the particles).

* Last but not least, the wheel stops giving a folder every time you sit on it or change the configuration. It now checks whether you already have the folder and uses it if it finds it (it must be right under #RLV). This has two nice effects : firstly it stops filling your #RLV with "~Wearables for Mousewheel blah blah" folders. Secondly, it won't detach the Zapper when relogging, since it will be found when coming back, so the settings stick.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

I've been busy lately, working on a new project that I have been wanting to do for a while : a Mousewheel.

What's a mousewheel ? Well, it is a wheel you put a mouse or a guinea pig in so it may run all it wants, making it turn.

Wait, no, that's not right. This is a big sturdy metal wheel that you put a slave in, and she has to walk or run in order to get a good workout. And possibly provide power to the lights around and entertainment to the bystanders. That's more like it.

Here is what it looks like :

You might have recognized it. It was designed, loosely, from pictures I saw on the House Of Gordwebsite (www.houseofgord.com). Highly recommended !

This is a powerful toy, fit for training even the most reluctant slaves. And since we are all about bondage here, it is also designed for training slaves in bondage.

The wheel is easy to use : the sub sits down and presses the forward arrow key on her keyboard to walk, then page up and page down to go faster or slower. Or, the top may "hitch" (*) the sub to the wheel (provided she uses a RLV relay), keeping her from standing up and she may walk.

According to the kind of training the top wants for his sub, five configurations are available :

* Normal : Walk and run in a sexy fashion.

* Chained : Walk with her ankles chained loosely.

* Hobbled : Walk with her knees tied together with ropes or straps.

* Tight : Hop with her legs tied together tightly in ropes or straps.

* Pony : Prance like a good ponygirl.

Most of those training configurations involve some kind of bondage, which works best with RealRestraint products. However other restraints would work well too, the animations are those of the wheel, not those of the restraints. For example, the hop animations are those found in the Siren ropes, Shibari ropes and Straps, so being tied in any of them while hopping in the wheel would not conflict with their fitting at all. It would look natural. And since the sub is likely bound, she has to be held up to prevent the risk of falling down. That's the "safe" part in "safe, sane and consensual". Which means that she is given a harness to hold her by her shoulders, that is chained up to the inner frame of the wheel :

This is the best way to train a girl in ballet heels, for example. But when you mean training, nothing is better than a good tens unit. Plugged to the main, clamped to the tits and pussy. Then your sub knows that you mean business. You set the minimum speed and off she goes. She will quickly learn by experience that slowing down is not a good idea !

Now, it would not be fun if all the sub had to do was to park in the wheel and go afk while running. That's why the speed decays regularly until the sub does something (pressing any arrow key on the keyboard for example). If she lets her speed go down and the zapper is plugged, she eventually gets zapped ! I cannot show a video I'm afraid, there was one but YouTube deemed it "inappropriate" four years after it was published. Let's just say she gets zapped where it is the most sensitive, like on the picture above.

And if she insists on slowing down, the zapper becomes harder !

Of course, when you train a sub you expect results. That's why this package includes a display that shows the distance paced (in meters, kilometers, yards and miles), the current speed, the elapsed time and the number of times she got zapped.

Finally, training a sub is good, but making her work is even better. What better use for her sweat than to make her power some lights, for example ? This product includes full-perms lights that you can use and modify at will, they will light up according to the power output provided by the wheel. There will be a battery used to accumulate the energy and provide it to other devices around, but this will be another product.

If you have several mousewheels laid out in the vicinity, the display and the lights react to the nearest device. And remember, training is good for the health !

The price of this product is L$400, it is sold as part of my Marine's Goodies brand, since this is not exactly a restraint. The wheel is Copy/Modify/No-Transfer, while the lights are full perms (their script is no-modify, though). The Land Impact is 19 prims equivalent. Please note, the restraints and outfit are not included.

Have fun ! Marine (*) "Hitch", like on the carts... Actually, this wheel IS a cart, only a non-vehicle one. This means that most of the features in the wheel will find their way into the carts sooner or later ! PS : The outfits and restraints that have been used in this shoot are : - Karu Karu white latex zip suit + Tango applier - BAX leather knee boots - Etchaflesh black mesh corset - Graves Bare Body thong - Graves Sacrifice top + Tango applier - RealRestraint Armbinder - RealRestraint Isolation Hood - RealRestraint Police Legirons - RealRestraint Arms and Legs Straps - RealRestraint Vixen collar